In Homer’s Odyssey, while several female characters, both divine and mortal, are described in the act of weaving (and un-weaving), only two of them – Calypso and Circe – are depicted as singing while they work. In book 5, we encounter Calypso ‘singing with a sweet voice as she went to and fro before the […]

Last year I visited Brisbane, Australia for a conference called ‘The Classical and the Contemporary’ as part of the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial. Before going I spent some time looking at the artists on the Queensland Art Gallery website and I was immediately drawn to a work by US-Iraqi artist Rheim Alkadhi called The Eye […]

My copy of January’s Artforum arrived yesterday and its cover compounded my disappointment that I’ll not be able to see Kerry James Marshall’s exhibition Mastry at the Met in the flesh. I was, however, lucky enough to be living in Madrid when Kerry James Marshall: painting and other stuff was on display at the Palacio […]

Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem Ithaka transforms the singular event of Odysseus’ nostos to his home on the rugged island of Ithaka into a symbolic, repeatable experience epitomized by understanding what ‘Ithakas’ plural mean. Here is the final two stanzas of the poem: Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set out. […]

Jeff Koons Popeye, 2003 Then I made me way into the tottering house itself and found it all in shambles. A clothesline freighted with frilly red underwear, not mine, and three pairs of long johns, not mine, stretched across the living room. The bathroom reeked of men’s after-shave and colognes – Brute – and was […]

Ulysses turned his back on the harbour and followed a rough track leading through the woods and up to the hills towards the place where Athena had told him. A group of men were idling around an oil barrel in which a fire was burning. He muttered a greeting and stood for a moment with […]

I am writing this from Madrid, in our tiny flat in Calle Olivar, our new home for the next year. As you would expect, I have spent the first week here exploring the wonders of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. In my three visits so far, two were centered on Picasso’s Guernica. […]

We had our first discussion about Contemporary Art in my class Classical Mythology/Contemporary Art today and it was on the topic ‘Same as it ever was: Appropriation Art’. As part of the lecture, we looked at Sherrie Levine’s 1990 work La Fortune (after Man Ray): Sherrie Levine, “La Fortune” (After Man Ray: 4), 1990. Felt […]